


Ben

by Gemcat167



Category: Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Genre: Creepy, Haunted Games, Playing the Game, Scary, Spooky, Supernatural - Freeform, Youtube Videos included
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 17:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemcat167/pseuds/Gemcat167
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jadusable's original story of BEN.<br/>Never trust a cartridge with no lable. You never know who could be haunting it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ben](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/11052) by Jadusable. 



> This a story written be Jadusable that I thought I should share with the community. I will link to both his twitter and youtube. Don't go and watch any of his videos before hand or you will spoil the story.
> 
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexanderdhall  
> YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Jadusable?feature=watch

Majora  
I recently moved into my dorm room starting as a sophomore in college and a friend of mine gave me his old Nintendo 64 to play. I was stoked, to say the least. I could finally play all those old games of my youth I hadn't touched in least a decade.  
His Nintendo 64 came with one yellow controller and a rather shoddy copy of Super Smash Brothers and, while beggars can't be choosers, it didn't take long before I got bored of beating up LVL 9 CPUs.  
That weekend, I decided to drive around a few neighborhoods about twenty minutes or so off-campus, hitting up the local garage sales. I was hoping to score some good deals from ignorant parents. I ended up picking up a copy of Pokémon Stadium, Goldeneye, F-Zero, and two other controllers for two dollars.  
Satisfied, I began to drive out of the neighborhood when one last house caught my attention. I still have no idea why it did; there were no cars there and only one table was set up with random junk on it. However, something sort of drew me there.  
I usually trust my gut on these things, so I got out of the car and was greeted by an old man. His outward appearance was, for lack of a better word, displeasing. It was odd. If you asked me why I thought he looked displeasing, I couldn't really pinpoint anything.  
There was just something about him that put me on edge. I can't explain it. All I can tell you that if it wasn't in the middle of the afternoon and there weren't other people within shouting distance, I wouldn't have even thought of approaching this man.  
He flashed a crooked smile at me and asked what I was looking for. Immediately, I noticed he must be blind in one eye; his right eye had that "glazed over" look about it. I forced myself to look to his left eye, trying not to offend, and asked if he had any old video games.  
I was already wondering how I could politely excuse myself from the situation when he would tell me he had no idea what a video game was, but to my surprise he said he had a few in an old box. He assured me he'd be back in a "jiffy" and turned to head back into the garage.  
As I watched him hobble away, I couldn't help but notice what he was selling on his table. Littered across his table were rather...peculiar paintings - various artworks that looked like ink blots a psychiatrist might show you.  
Curious, I looked through them. It was obvious why no one was visiting this guy's garage sale; these weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. As I came to the last one, I noticed it looked almost like Majora's Mask, with the same heart-shaped body with the little spikes protruding outward.  
Initially, I just thought that since I was secretly hoping to find that game at these garage sales, some Freudian bullshit was projecting itself into the ink blots. However, given the events that happened after, I'm not so sure now. I should have asked the man about it. I wish I asked the man about it.  
After staring at the Majora-shaped blot, I looked up and the old man was suddenly there again, arms-length in front of me and smiling. I'll admit, I jumped out of reflex a nd laughed nervously as he handed me a Nintendo 64 cartridge.  
It was the standard gray color and had no label. Someone had written Majora on it in black permanent marker. I got butterflies in my stomach as I realized what a coincidence it was and asked how much the old man wanted for it.  
The old man smiled and told me I could have it for free. He said it used to belong to a kid around my age that didn't live here anymore. There was something weird about how he phrased that, but I didn't really any attention then. I was too caught up in not only finding the game, but getting it for free.  
I reminded myself to be a bit skeptical since this looked like a pretty shady cartridge and there was no guarantee it would work. However, the optimist inside me interjected that maybe it was some kind of beta or pirated version of the game. That was all I needed to be back on cloud nine.  
I thanked the man, who smiled and wished me well, saying "Goodbye then," which at the time is what it sounded like to me. All the way in the car ride home, I had a nagging doubt that the man had said something else.


	2. Chapter 2

My fears were confirmed when I booted up the game (to my surprise, it worked just fine) and there was one save file simply named, "BEN." The man was saying, "Goodbye, Ben." I felt bad for him. He was obviously a grandparent going senile. I, for some reason or another, reminded him of his grandson, "Ben."  
Out of curiosity, I looked at the save file. I could tell he was pretty far in the game; he had almost all of the masks and 3/4 boss remains. I noticed he had used an owl statue to save his game. He was on Day 3 by the Stone Tower Temple with hardly an hour before the moon would crash.  
I remember thinking it was a shame he had come so close to beating the game but never finished it. I made a new file named "Link," out of tradition, and started the game. I was ready to relive my childhood.  
For such a shady looking cartridge, I was impressed at how smoothly it ran - literally just like a retail copy of the game, save for few minor hiccups here and there (textures being where they should be, random flashes of cut scenes at odd intervals, nothing too bad).  
However, the only thing that was a little unnerving was that, at times, the NPCs would call me "Link" and call me "BEN" at other times. I figured it was a bug, maybe a fluke in the programming, that caused our save files to get mixed up or something.  
It did kind of creep me out after a while, though. Around the time I beat Woodfall temple, I regrettably erased the "BEN" file. I had intended to preserve the file out of respect for the game's original owner. It's not like I needed two files anyway.  
I hoped that would solve the problem. It did and didn't. Now NPCs wouldn't call me anything. Where my name should be in the dialogue was a blank space (my save file was still called "Link," however). Frustrated and with homework to do, I put the game down for a day.  
I started playing the game again last night, getting the Lens of Truth and working my way toward completing Snowhead Temple. Now, some of you more hardcore Majora's Mask players know about the "4th Day" glitch. For those who don't, you can Google it.  
The gist of it is that right as the clock is about to hit 00:00:00 on the final day, you talk to the astronomer and look through the telescope. If you exit the telescope just as the timer hits 00:00:00, the countdown disappears and you essentially have an endless amount of time to finish whatever you were doing.  
Deciding to do the glitch to try and finish Snowhead Temple, I went in and tried. I happened to get it right on the first time and the counter at the bottom disappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

When I exited the telescope, I found myself in the Majora boss room at the end of the game (the trippy boxed in area), staring at Skull Kid hovering above me. There was no sound, just him floating in the air above me and the background music, which was regular for the area (but still creepy).  
Immediately, my palms began to sweat. This was definitely not normal. Skull Kid NEVER appeared here. I tried moving around the area and, no matter where I went, Skull Kid would always be facing me, not saying anything.  
Nothing would happen and this kept up for around sixty seconds. I thought the game was bugged or something, but I was beginning to doubt that very much.  
I was about to reach for the reset button when text appeared on the screen. "You're not sure why, but you apparently had a reservation..." I instantly recognized that text. You get that message when you get the Room Key from Anju at the Stock Pot Inn. Why was it playing here?  
I refused to entertain the nothing that it was almost as if the game was trying to communicate with me. I started to walk around the room again, testing if that was some sort of trigger that enabled me to interact with something before realizing how stupid I was.  
To even think that someone could reprogram the game like this was absurd. Sure enough, though, another message appeared on the screen fifteen seconds later and, like the first one, it was already a preexisting phrase. "Go to the lair of the temple's boss? Yes/No"  
I paused for a second, contemplating what I should press and how the game would react, when I realized I couldn't select No. Taking a deep breath, I pressed Yes and the screen faded to white, with the words "Dawn of a New Day" and the subtext "||||||||" beneath it.  
Where I was transported to filled me with the most intense sense of dread and impending fear I have ever experienced. The only way I can describe the way I felt here is having this feeling of inexplicable depression on a profound scale.  
I'm not normally a depressed person, but the way I felt here was a feeling I didn't even know existed. It was such a twisted, powerful presence that seemed to wash right over me.  
I appeared in some kind of weird Twilight Zone version of Clock Town. I walked out of the Clock Tower (as you normally do when you start from the 1st Day) only to find all the inhabitants were gone. Usually with the 4th Day glitch, you can still find the guards and the dog that runs around outside the tower, but they were all gone.  
What replaced them was the ominous feeling there was something out there, in the same area as me, and it was watching me. I had four hearts to my name and the Hero's Bow, but at this point I wasn't even considering for my avatar. I felt that I personally was in some kind of danger.  
Perhaps the most chilling thing was the music. It was the Song of Healing, ripped straight from the game and played in reverse. The music would get louder, building up so you should expect something to pop out at you, but nothing ever did and the constant loop began to wear on my mental state.  
Every now and then, I would hear the faint laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman in the background. It was just quiet enough that I wasn't sure if I was just hearing things, but just loud enough to keep me determined to find him.  
I looked in all four zones of Clock Town only to find nothing...and no one. Textures were missing, too. West Clock town had me walking on air and the entire area felt...broken. Hopelessly broken.  
As the reverse Song of Healing repeated for what must have been the 50t time, I remember standing in the middle of South Clock town realizing that I had never felt so alone in a video game before.  
As I walked through the ghost town, I don't know whether it was the combination of the out-of-place textures, the atmosphere, and the haunting melody of the once peaceful and soothing song being butchered and distorted, but I was literally on the verge of tears and I had no idea why. I hardly ever cry, but something had gripped me here and caused this powerful sense of depression that was both foreign and crippling.


	4. Chapter 4

I tried leaving Clock Town, but every time I went through one of the exits, the screen would fade to black and I would enter another zone of Clock Town. I tried playing my Ocarina. I wanted to escape; I did NOT want to be here. However, every time I played the Song of Time or Song of Soaring, it would only say, "Your notes echo far, but nothing happens."  
By this point, it was obvious the game didn't want me to leave, but I had no idea why it was keeping me here. I didn't want to go inside buildings; I felt I would be too vulnerable to whatever I was terrified of. I don't know why, but I came up with the idea that if I drowned myself at the Laundry Pool, I could spawn elsewhere and leave.  
As I ran toward the pool, it happened. Link grabbed his head and the screen flashed for a brief moment of the Happy Mask Salesman smiling at me - not Link, but ME - with the Skull Kid's scream playing in the background. When the screen returned, I was staring at the Link Statue usually created by playing the Elegy of Emptiness.  
I screamed as the thing stared back at me with that haunting facial expression. I turned around and ran back to South Clock Town. To my horror, the fucking statue followed me in a way I can only describe as being similar to the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who.  
Every so often, at random intervals, the animation would play of the statue appearing behind me. It was like the thing was chasing me, or - I don't even want to fucking say it - haunting me.  
By this point, I was on the verge of hysterics. However, not even once did the thought of turning off the console occur to me. I don't know why, but I was so wrapped up in it. The terror felt all so real. I tried to shake the statue, but it would literally appear right behind me every single time it went off-screen.  
Link started to make weird animations I had never seen him do. He would flail his arms around or spasm randomly. The screen would cut to the Happy Mask Salesman smiling again for a brief moment before I was face to face with that fucking statue again.  
I ended up running into the Swordsmaster's Dojo and ran to the back. I don't know why, but in my panic I wanted some kind of assurance I wasn't alone. To my dismay, I found no one. As I turned to leave, the statue cornered me in the cubby in the back.  
I tried attacking the statue with my sword, but to no avail. Confused and backed into a corner, I stared at the statue and waited for it to kill me. Suddenly, the screen flashed again to the Happy Mask Salesman and Link turned to face me, standing upright as a mirror image of the statue and looking at me with his copy. Literally staring at me.  
Whatever was left of the fourth wall was completely shattered while I ran out of the dojo, terrified. Suddenly, the game warped me to an underground tunnel. The reverse Song of Healing queued up again as I was given a brief moment of rest before the statue started appearing again...this time aggressively.  
I could only take a few steps before it would be summoned behind me again. I hurriedly made my way out of the tunnel and appeared in Southern Clock Town. As I ran aimlessly in a sheer panic, a ReDead suddenly screamed and the screen faded to black. "Dawn of a New Day" and "||||||||" appeared again.  
The screen faded in and I was standing atop the Clock Tower with Skull Kid hovering over me again, silent. I looked up and the moon was back, looming just meters above my head, but the Skull Kid stared at me hauntingly with that fucking mask.  
A new song was playing: the Stone Tower Temple theme played in reverse. In some sort of desperate attempt, I equipped my bow and fired off a shot at Skull Kid. It actually hit him and he played an animation of him reeling back.  
I fired again and, on the third arrow, a text box appeared that said, "That won't do you any good. Hee, hee." I was picked up off the ground, levitated upwards on my back, and Link screamed as he burst into flames, instantly killing him.  
I jumped when this happened. I had never seen this move used by ANYONE in the game and, in addition, Skull Kid didn't even have any moves! As the dead scene played, my lifeless body still burning, the Skull Kid laughed and the screen faded to black.  
I reappeared in the same place. I decided to charge him, but the same thing happened. Link's body was lifted off the ground by some unknown force and burst into flames, again killing him. This time, during the death scene, the faint sounds of the reverse Song of Healing could be heard.  
On my third and final try, I noticed there was no music playing; all there was was eerie silence. I remembered that in the original encounter with Skull Kid, you were supposed to use the ocarina to either travel back in time or Summon the Giants. I attempted to play the Song of Time, but before I could hit the last note Link's body once again burst into flames and he died.  
As the death scene neared its end, the game began to chug. It was as if the cartridge was trying to process a lot of something. When the screen came to, it was the same scene as the first three times, except Link was lying on the ground, dead, in a position I had never seen in the game before.  
His head was tilted toward the camera and Skull Kid was floating above him. I couldn't move or press any buttons. All I could do was stare at Link's body. After around 30 seconds of this, the game faded out with the message "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before kicking me to the title screen.  
Upon getting back to the title screen and starting again, I noticed my save file was gone. Instead of "Link" was "YOUR TURN." "YOUR TURN" had three hearts and no masks or items. I selected this file and was returned to the Clock Tower Rooftop scene of Link dead and the Skull Kid hovering over, with the Skull Kid's laugh looping again and again.  
I quickly hit reset and when the game booted up again there was one more save file added below "YOUR TURN": "BEN." That save file is right back where it was before I deleted it, at the Stone Tower Temple with the moon almost crashing.  
I turned the game off at that point. I'm not superstitious, but this is WAY too fucked up - even for me. I haven't played it at all today. Hell, I didn't even get any sleep last night. I kept hearing the reverse Song of Healing in my head and couldn't get past that sense of dread I felt while exploring Clock Town.  
I drove back to the old man's house today with a buddy of mine (no way was I going there alone) to ask him some questions, only to find there's a for sale sign in the front yard. When I rang the doorbell, no one was home.  
So now I'm back here, writing down the rest of my thoughts and recording what happened. Sorry if some of this has grammatical errors and whatnot; I'm running on no sleep here.  
I'm terrified of this game, even more so now that I relived it a second time just writing this down. However, I feel like there's still more to it than meets the eye and there's something calling me to investigate this further.  
I think "BEN" is something in this equation, but I don't know what. If I could get hold of the old man, I would be able to find some answers. I need another day or so to recuperate before tackling this game again, however. I feel it's already taken a toll on my insanity, but next time I do this I'm going to record the entire thing.  
The idea to record only came to me toward the end, so you only see the last few minutes of what I saw (including the Skull Kid and Elegy statue), but it's on YouTube here.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6D2XCJUJHY


	5. Chapter 5

I'm going to post what happened and link to the video footage, but everything got too real for me last night. I think I'm done messing around with this.  
I passed out pretty much immediately after making that thread. Last night, however, I had a dream about that Elegy of Emptiness statue. I dreamed it was following me, that I would be minding my own business when I'd feel my neck hairs stand up on end.  
I would turn around and that thing...that horrible, lifeless statue would be staring at me with those empty eyes right at me, merely inches away. In my dream, I remember calling it Ben. Never bore had I had a dream I could remember so vividly. The important thing is that I did get SOME sleep, I suppose.  
Today, putting off playing the game as long as I could, I drove back to that neighborhood to see if the old man returned. As I expected, the car was still gone and no one was home. As I was walking back to my car, the man next door came up and asked me if I was looking for someone.  
I told him I was looking to talk to the old man that lived here, to which he told me what I already knew: he was moving. Trying a different avenue, I asked if the old man had any family or relatives I could talk to.  
I discovered this old man had never been married, nor did he have any children or grandchildren through adoption. Starting to become worried, I asked one final question (one I should have asked from the beginning): who was Ben?  
The man's expression turned grim and I learned that four door down, around eight years ago on April 23rd (the man informed me that it was the same day as his anniversary, which is why he knew the specific date) there was an accident with a young boy named Ben in the neighborhood.  
Shortly after, his parents moved. Despite any further attempts to talk to the man to get more information, he wouldn't divulge anything else.  
I went back home and started playing the game again. I loaded up the game and immediately jumped at the sequence where the mask flies by. The sound that played was not the normal "whoosh" sound, but something much more higher pitched.  
I pressed start and braced for the worst, but just like two nights ago the files "YOUR TURN" and "BEN" were displayed. Truth be told, I looked at the BEN file earlier and it seems to fluctuate between displaying the owl icon and not.  
I brought up the BEN file and hesitated for a moment as I noticed the stats were not the same as they were two days ago. It looked like he had already completed the Stone Tower Temple this time. Summoning my courage, I selected it.  
Immediately, I was thrust into complete chaos. Sure enough, I was outside Stone Tower Temple, but that's about all that was expected. The area itself wasn't called Stone Tower Temple, but rather "St o n e," and immediately a dialogue box of complete gibberish I couldn't make out greeted me.  
Link's body was distorted. His back was cocked violently to the side and his posture was permanently disfigured. Link's expression was dull, almost monotonous. He had an expression on his face I didn't recognize. It was a blank look, as if he were dead.  
As Link stood there, his body spasmed irregularly back and forth. I examined what had become of my avatar and noticed a C-button item I never saw before. It was some kind of note, but pressing it did nothing.  
Sounds played back and forth that I didn't recognize from the game. They were almost demonic nature. There was some kind of high-pitched yip or some kind of laugh or something playing in the background, too.  
I had all of two minutes to take in the environment before another of those fucking Elegy of Emptiness statues was summoned. Immediately after, I was cut to the "Dawn of a New Day" screen, except this time without the "||||||" subtext.


	6. Chapter 6

I was a Deku Scrub in Clock Town. This scene would normally play after the first time you traveled back in time. Tatl would say, "Wh-What just happened? It's as if everything has..." but instead of saying, "Started over," she finished her remark in broken text as the laugh of the Happy Mask Salesman played in the background.  
I was put back in control of my character, but from a screwed up angle. I was looking from behind the door to the Clock Tower, watching my avatar run around as a Deku Scrub.  
Seeing as I had no place to go because I couldn't see anything, I begrudgingly went inside. There, I was greeted by the Happy Mask Salesman. He simply told me, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" before the screen whited out.  
I was in Termina Field as a Hylian again. I might as well have not even been playing the same game anymore. I was being warped around and there was no sign of a clock or anything. I took a moment to get my bearings as I looked around the field and, immediately, I could tell this wasn't normal.  
There were no enemies and a twisted version of the Happy Mask Salesman's theme was playing. I decided to run toward Woodfall before I noticed a gathering of three figures off to the side; one of them was Epona.  
As I approached them, I saw the Happy Mask Salesman, the Skull Kid, and the Elegy of Emptiness statue standing there as well. I figured maybe they were bugged out, but by then I should have known better.  
Nevertheless, I approached them carefully and found Skull Kid and Epona were doing some kind of idle animations on loop. The Elegy of Emptiness statue was doing what it had been doing all along: standing there eerily. It was the Happy Mask Salesman that scared me profoundly more than the other two.  
He, too, was idle and wearing that shit-eating grin. However, wherever I moved, his head slowly turned and followed me. I had no engaged in any dialogue with him nor was I in combat with him, yet his head still continued to follow my movements.  
Reminded of my first encounter with the Skull Kid on top of the Clock Tower, I pulled out my Ocarina (to which the game played the ding sound that tells you you're supposed to play it) and tried a song I hadn't played yet - the Happy Mask Salesman's own song and the song that had been playing on loop back in Day 4: the Song of Healing.  
As I finished playing the song, an ear-piercing shriek blasted the TV speakers. The sky immediately started flashing and the Happy Mask Salesman's twisted theme sped up, intensifying the fear inside me. Link exploded into flames and died.  
The three figures stayed lit up during the death scene as they watched my lifeless body burn. I can't describe to you how sudden and terrifying the transition from eeriness to terror it is. You're going to have to watch the video if you want to see that firsthand.  
That same fear that caused me to lose sleep two days ago started to grip me again as I was met with the text, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" for the third time. There has to be some kind of meaning behind that.  
I had little time to ponder as I was immediately given another small cut scene of transforming into a Zora. Now I found myself in the Great Bay. Hesitant, but curious to see what the game had in store for me, I slowly made my way toward the beach, where I found Epona.  
I wondered why the game had decided to put her here. Was the game implying she was trying to get a drink? Unable to take mask off, I decided that riding the steed wasn't the reason she was placed there.  
Suddenly, I realized that Epona kept neighing. The way she was angled made it look like she was trying to signal a point to me off in the distance. It was a hunch, but I dove into the water and started swimming.  
The title screen was before me and I knew the only reason it would put me here is because the save files had changed again. Taking a deep breath, I press start and found out I was right.  
The new save files told me about Ben. Now it made sense why the statue appeared when I tried to go to the Laundry Pool. The game must have anticipated how I would have tried to escape the Day 4 Clock Town.  
The two save files told me his fate. As I suspected, Ben was dead. He had drowned. The game obviously isn't through with me. It taunts me with the new save files. It wants me to keep playing. It wants me to go further. I'm done with this shit, though. I'm not touching any more of the files.  
This is already way too horrifying for me and I don't even believe in the paranormal, but I'm running out of explanations. Why would someone send me this message? I don't understand it and I just get too depressed thinking about it.  
The footage is up here for those who want to see it and try and analyze it. Maybe there's some kind of coded message in the gibberish or something symbolic in what I went through, but I'm too emotionally and mentally drained to fuck with it anymore.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGOJmdxdjeA&feature=relmfu


End file.
